Engaging Students during Instruction Essay Example for Free

Engaging Students during Instruction Essay Differentiated instruction is the critical element of effective education. Differentiated instruction guarantees that the learning needs of every student are satisfied. Bloom’s taxonomy can be used to determine the level of individual learners’ thinking, while Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences can help evaluate the level of learners’ knowledge and determine the ways to enhance this knowledge by using differentiated instructional strategies. Engaging Students during Instruction Differentiated instruction is the critical element of effective education. Differentiated instruction guarantees that the learning needs of every student are satisfied. Bloom’s taxonomy and Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences are the two complementary models that can be used to develop differentiated instructional strategies in any type of learning environment. Out of many educational researchers, B. Bloom is considered one of the most prominent education professionals in the 20th century. â€Å"Bloom and his colleagues undertook the daunting task of creating taxonomy of educational objectives† (Tomlinson, 1999). It should be noted that Bloom has initially concentrated his attention on differentiating the learning objectives; thus, his taxonomy can be successfully applied to differentiate between the learning outcomes for different groups of learners. Howard Gardner was deeply involved into researching human creative abilities (Gardner, 1993). The result of his profound investigation is reflected in the discovery of eight levels of intelligence (knowing). Each of these multiple intelligences can be used to determine the level of knowledge for a particular learner, and to develop the set of strategies to address the most significant knowledge gaps. In many instances, the combination of the two learning theories will serve the basis for the creation and implementation of effective instructional approaches that will satisfy the learning needs of all types of learners. In reality, both Bloom’s taxonomy and Gardner’s multiple intelligences create a stable framework for successful learning. Each lesson must have individualized learning objectives, a clear set of instructional strategies, and a choice of evaluation criteria, but these elements cannot be developed and applied without sound knowledge of Bloom’s and Gardner’s learning theories. Each lesson should be characterized by â€Å"a variety of teacher techniques aimed at reaching students at all levels† (Skowron, 2001), and by engaging all students into discussion. Here, Bloom’s taxonomy will be used to determine the level of individual learners’ thinking, while Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences will be used to evaluate the level of learners’ knowledge and the ways to enhance this knowledge using differentiated instructional strategies. Gardner pays special attention to non-linguistic intelligences, including bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, musical, and naturalist learner abilities (Gardner, 1993). Gardner’s theory can be used to â€Å"convey learning experiences with understanding of the many different ways individuals gain mastery in their learning processes† (Tomlinson, 1999). However, Gardner’s approaches are limited to knowledge and comprehension areas of instructional design, while Bloom’s taxonomy further expands to setting clear objectives and evaluating the learning outcomes through the prism of six different levels of learning. Gardner’s multiple intelligences and Bloom’s taxonomy form a detailed observation of the learners’ style, needs, abilities, and knowledge. The two theories create an excellent combination that will motivate students to learn. â€Å"With the outcomes clearly defined for students, the possibility exists that they will feel more challenges; they may motivate them to push on to the next levels of understanding† (Skowron, 2001). At each level of student intelligence, a variety of instructional strategies can be implemented to satisfy the widest range of the learning needs, and to ensure that each of Bloom’s learning outcomes is achieved by all groups of learners. When learners are aware of the six groups of learning outcomes (Bloom’s taxonomy) they may also choose, whether they need to work on their strongest intelligences, or whether they should concentrate on their weaker intelligence sides to achieve the anticipated outcomes in particular learning process. Thus, the combination of Bloom’s taxonomy and Gardner’s learning theory offers substantial freedom for student participation in the learning process (Tomlinson, 1999). Bloom’s taxonomy and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences offer better choice and independence to students, creating favorable conditions for developing and implementing differentiated instructional approaches in classroom. References Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: the theory in practice. New York: Basic Books. Skowron, J. (2001). How to differentiate instruction. In J. Skowron, Powerful lesson planning models, Arlington Heights, IL. Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom responding to the needs of all learners. ASCD. Paper responses Daniel’s paper Daniel is very correct: there is no â€Å"one size fits all† in education. Differentiated instruction should stem from the optimal combination of learning theories and approaches. Piaget’s epistemological theory and Gardner’s multiple intelligences form a good combination of differentiated approaches toward instruction, and Daniel uses a simple and effective mathematical example to illustrate his findings. However, Daniel’s work also implies that there is unlimited number of theoretical combinations that can be used to differentiate instruction. I think and agree with Daniel that by using only one theory, instructional professionals risk losing significant learning benefits that each learning theory offers.